


Ianto, Ianto

by theravenwrites



Category: Torchwood
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-06
Updated: 2013-07-06
Packaged: 2017-12-17 20:28:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/871641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theravenwrites/pseuds/theravenwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You find a letter Ianto wrote to himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ianto, Ianto

You stand behind the booth in the Information Center, arrested. You’re holding a sheet of paper with a handwritten note. The handwriting is neat and the note is only half a page long, but somehow dense. Your attention is completely focused on the paper, the normal anxieties that you have become used to, worrying about the Rift, worrying about the team, are forgotten.

The note says:

Ianto,

I’m sure you’re very confused at this moment, but don’t worry, it gets easier. Tell Jack to knock off the sex jokes. He’ll try, at least. There’s some things that he’ll probably have forgotten to mention, just a few odd jobs that you do. All the information you need is on the computer up here in the file called Misc. It needs the regular password to open it.

I just want to say, I’m sorry. That seems a little strange, to apologize to myself. But right now, I am sorry for myself. It’s going to be hard. But it’s worth it. You’ll pick things up, you’ll rebuild. You know how to do it; you’ve done it before.

Best of luck,

Ianto

A hand sneaks around your shoulder and firmly takes the paper out of your hand. You jerk away, startled. It’s Jack, his expression unreadable, as always.

“I’ll take that,” Jack says in his harsh accent. He folds the paper reverently and tucks it away into his coat pocket. “Just so you know, he’s not coming back.”

And with that, Jack is gone. You stay up in the booth, ostensibly tidying up, but really thinking. You’re the newest Torchwood hire, the last of three. So far you’ve been relegated to teaboy, but it’s okay. It’s still Torchwood, so even being the teaboy is interesting.

You don’t know who Ianto was, but you have an idea. There’s a real sense of history to this place, and a lot of secrets. Dillon and Riko, the other newest hires, and you get drinks sometimes, and you talk about it, about how Gwen and Jack carefully never mention the people who worked here before you. 

Riko knows the doctor she replaced was named Owen Harper and she’s managed to dig up some information about him. Apparently he died a while before he stopped working. Dillon says the only real place Tosh left her mark is within the system, and he says he feels like he knows her, somehow, just from the way she programmed. You don’t really understand that, but you guess it’s a techie thing.

You think Ianto was different. It’s all the little things, like the time you handed Jack his coat and he stared at you like he’d seen a ghost. Or when Gwen shouted at Dillon for referring to you as the teaboy. Or how Gwen joked that you’d better not be hiding your nonexistent girlfriend in the basement. Or how Jack, out of everyone, never takes a coffee when you make it (which is about a thousand times a day,) but you still see him wandering around with a blue and white striped mug, sometimes. 

Really, it all seems to come back to Jack (but doesn’t everything?) Jack feeds Myfanwy, even though when you started you found it in one of the files telling you about your duties (presumably left by the ubiquitous Ianto).

You don’t know how to feel about fitting into the space left by someone else. You didn’t know Ianto, so you can’t feel like you’re replacing him. It’s in the way that Gwen and Jack see the differences in you two that makes you notice it. But you think there’s not much you can do, so you resolve to just do things your way, and if they don’t like it, they can always fire you. Although you hope they don’t. You kind of like it here.

It’s after a long day of Rift spikes and everyone out cruising the city at top speed, looking for the aliens and you on the comm., giving directions that you realize what it is that Jack does every night when everyone else leaves. Jack must think you’re already gone, as well, but you had some of the omnipresent paperwork to fill out (for an organization with a healthy dose of suspicion towards authority, there’s a remarkable amount of bureaucracy,) and when you go down to find your coat, you see him, watching CCTV.

You pause on the stairs, unsure of what to do. You can probably go without your coat, it’s not too cold out, and just as you’re about to sneak out, Jack speaks.

“He promised he would come back.”

You slowly take steps down. Jack still hasn’t looked in your direction.

“But in the end, he chose a new life.”

You’re now close enough to see that Jack is looking through a special collection of cameras, mainly in one suburb of Cardiff, but one shows a dark office and another a nearly empty grocery store. 

“And I can’t blame him.”

You know without a doubt Jack is speaking of Ianto, even though this is all a non-sequitor. There’s a special tone and look Jack gets when he thinks of the recent past. (The not-so-recent past is usually accompanied by a rakish grin and the light in his eyes of adventure).

There’s a man, puttering around a house, getting ready for bed. He’s wearing a dress shirt and pants, and his tie is half-undone. Jack stares at him fixedly. You honestly wonder why Ianto would choose such a lonely life (it’s clearly a bachelor’s home, however tastefully decorated), over Torchwood, but then again, you know you just haven’t been around long enough to get damaged.

Jack’s decisive movement to shut down the monitor startles you, and you have to take a hasty step backwards as Jack pushes his chair out. He walks briskly towards the other end of the Hub as he calls out, “Go home already, and get some rest.”

You say, “Yes, sir,” and grab your coat and leave. You never see the way Jack crumples at your comment. You’ve already guessed just what, exactly, Ianto was to Jack.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been going through my old fic folder on my computer and decided to put some things up on AO3. I know I posted this to my old livejournal, and probably some community or other, but I honestly can't remember when or where, specifically.


End file.
